International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Vol XXXV, Part B5. Istanbul 2004 
  
4. APPLICATIONS AND RESULTS 
The following cultural heritage projects were carried out using 
the DILAS 3D GIS in order to assess its suitability and to gain 
valuable information for further developments and 
investigations. 
4.1 3D model of the castle of Wildenstein, BL (Switzerland) 
A recent project at FHBB addressed the acquisition and 
modelling of the castle of Wildenstein, BL (Switzerland). This 
castle is the only preserved height-castle in this region. The 
tower of the castle was built around 1293. The other parts of the 
castle were built later around 1693. 
Figure 4: Castle of Wildenstein, BL (Switzerland) 
As shown in the photograph above the acquisition and 
modelling of the castle was very difficult due to its exposed 
location and complex form. Thus, a range of technologies were 
used for the surveying of the castle. The exterior hull of the 
castle, for example, was surveyed by means of helicopter-based 
digital close-range photogrammetry using a Nikon D100 
camera. The interior of the castle was surveyed using reflector- 
less tachymetry and terrestrial laser scanning. A precise 
geodetic control network was established to tie these different 
surveys to a common reference system. The comparison 
between the two methods revealed some interesting results. 
While laser scanning is unbeatable in terms of data acquisition 
rate, it proved that current laser scanning processing software is 
still ill suited to the modelling and construction of irregular 3D 
objects and that operators typically reverted to the combination 
of tachymetry and CAD construction. The integrated result of 
these surveys was a 3D CAD model of the castle of 
Wildenstein. 
The DILAS 3D GIS was subsequently used to manage the 3D 
model of the castle. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Building Room 
ID A ID 
Name Room type 
Year of Construction Floor 
Comments Comments 
3D Geometry FK1 |Building Reference 
2D Boundary 3D Geometry 
2D Boundary 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Vegetation : Building structures Digital terrain model Orthoimages 
ID ID Name Name 
Description Description Description Description 
3D Geometry 30 Geometry Resolution Resolution 
2D Boundary 2D Boundary Height data Image data 
2D Boundary 2D Boundary 
  
Figure 5: Data model of the castle of Wildenstein 
The data model for this application 1s shown in Figure 5. In this 
case the data model is relatively simple and consists of 
buildings and their rooms. However, the objects themselves can 
be highly complex and can consist of a lot of geometry 
elements with - different semantics (e.g. wooden facade or 
concrete ground etc.). To manage this so called element 
thematic it was necessary to attach thematic attributes to all 
geometry elements. This can be done using XML-based import 
rules which, for example, assign element attributes based on 
CAD levels before storing the 3d objects in the database. 
The project revealed a number of advantages of the 3D GIS 
over the CAD file-based solution. One was the possibility to 
selectively load one or more rooms or building parts from the 
database based on different predicates such as floor number, 
room type or building material. Another advantage was the 
multi-user support which allowed several different teams of 
students to simultaneously work on the same 3D model. 
Following the generation of the complete 3D model in DILAS 
which also included the digital elevation model and the 
orthoimagery of the area, an interactive 3D scene was created 
(Figure 6). This 3D scene can be displayed with the viewer 
technology G-VISTA. 
    
; Figure 6: 3D model of the castle of Wildenstein, BL 
(Switzerland) 
G-VISTA is a high-performance 3D viewing technology which 
enables the interactive visualisation of very large 3D landscapes 
— either from CD/DVD or via the Web. The web-based capabi- 
lity significantly extends the range of users and applications for 
such cultural heritage projects. In our case the 3D model is not 
only used for the digital preservation of the castle of 
Wildenstein but also for the presentation and exploitation of 
this important historical site via the Internet, e.g. for 
educational purposes. 
4.0 3D reconstruction of the roman city of Augusta 
Raurica (Switzerland) 
Augusta Raurica was a roman city ten kilometres east of Basel. 
The city was inhabited by some 20'000 people in the first 
centuries A.D. Many monuments are well preserved and the 
historic site attracts more than 120'000 visitors annually 
(www.augustaraurica.ch). 
The aim of first diploma thesis at the FHBB was to create a 
realistic virtual 3D model of the modern city of Augst, which 
was partially built on top of the ruins of Augusta Raurica. The 
base data consisted of aerial imagery and ground planes of the 
   
    
   
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